Have you seen Laurel?
by arinhel.melleide
Summary: 'Gareth spent the rest of the day undermining his boss by assisting his boss's opposition to save the sister of said opposition, who just happened to be the girl that he had feelings for.' 1.07 Introspective into just Gareth's thoughts while Laurel is held by the FBI (with a couple things of just my own ;P).


_A/N:_ _So, I'm not dead, nor have I fallen off the face of the Earth. I was merely on vacation in the Scottish highlands, where I had severely limited access to the internet and a giant horde of family scorning me for spending time on the computer instead of with them._

 _I do not own, nor shall I ever own CBS's_ BrainDead _, there would be a LOT more of Aaron Tveit's face if I did...and he would actually sing..._

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Gareth had to stop himself from sprinting down the stairs on his way to Senator Healy's offices. He'd heard Laurel was released and he knew that the first person she'd want to see was her brother.

When he heard her name spoken by her friends—through the door not over the phone—he had literally leapt out of his chair. They had agreed to meet up at some point to talk, but he hadn't heard from her all day. Panic really set in when he started to connect what Rochelle and… Dr. Bobb had said with what Red had been doing with the FBI and Luke.

Once he knew the democratic senator was back in his office, Gareth had waited a respectable amount of time before going down to see him. He had asked about Laurel, and knew from the look on her brother's face that he had been starting to suspect tha something fishy was going on. That Laurel was the 'witness' that the FBI had in their custody, had not even crossed his mind until that moment.

His stomach dropped and anxiety tore at his chest when he saw the blatant fear on Luke's face when the FBI agent was still on the line. He was surprised and grateful when Luke had thanked him after that, but he was too preoccupied with his own worry to really think about how to react to that. So, he just nodded and left.

Gareth spent the rest of the day undermining his boss by assisting his boss's opposition to save the sister of said opposition, who just happened to be the girl that he had _feelings_ for.

Sure, she was a little crazy—seriously the thing about the bugs was more than a little insane. But the panic that had consumed him made him realize that he really didn't care at all. He wanted to have a chance to find out if they could move past that. He didn't even want to think about her being in a position to get hurt in any way. Let alone imagining her being subjected to controlled immersion, or any of the other things he knew they could do to her under Appendix-Q rules.

Despite said undermining of his boss at almost every turn, the Chief-of-Staff didn't feel guilty about anything he had done. In fact, he had a sense of accomplishment he hadn't felt in the weeks since Red had turned his grassroots idea into astro-turfing the insane One-Wayers.

As he focused on just _walking_ down the stairs, Gareth glanced through the window into the office and caught a glimpse of Laurel.

He immediately stopped in his tracks, a smile breaking over his face when he saw her having a moment with her friends. He stayed on the stairs and watched her hug her friend, trying not to focus too much on the soft, warm feeling that suffused him on seeing her safe. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luke stand up to greet her, and he felt that he would be intruding if he walked in on them having a sibling moment.

Gareth turned on the stairs and almost ran into Laurel's father, former senator, Dean Healy. He stepped back, an awkward 'Sir' slipping out of his mouth and cleared his throat, remembering what Laurel had said weeks ago about her father 'observing' them.

"You're Senator Wheatus's Chief-of-Staff, Gareth Ritter, right?"

"Yes, sir." God, why did his voice have to break? It made him sound like a pathetic teenager.

"You've been hanging around my daughter." It was a statement, not a question, but Gareth nodded anyway, feeling a touch intimidated. "Watch out, boy." Then the man smiled and walked on to greet his children.

Gareth shook his head, shrugged, and walked back up the stairs. He would talk to Laurel tomorrow… Maybe he would even ask her on another date?

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 _Hope you like it! Good? Bad? Somewhere in between? Let me know :)_


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